Chords and Riffs
by Webdog177
Summary: The musicians who came through the venue no longer gave me any thrills. I longer looked at any of the girls themselves. The Wednesday of the Hatsune Miku show didn't start out any differently. Mind the 'M' rating. [Negitoro one-shot]


Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is for entertainment purposes only

Because everybody needs little Negitoro sometimes.

Enjoy.

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 **Chords and Riffs**

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The musicians who came through the venue no longer gave me any thrills. Whether their drum kits, their amps and guitars were cherished and protected or banged up and tossed into splintered cases littered with stickers, I handled their stuff with equal care, but I longer looked at any of the girls themselves.

The Wednesday of the Hatsune Miku show didn't start out any differently. As a perk of the job, I could have watched the show and had a couple of free drinks, but I planned to hang out backstage, plug my ears anytime I could get away with it and try to study for my upcoming network certification exam.

Miku sought me out personally to talk to me about her guitar and piano set before relinquishing them to my supervision. I made notes about how she wanted them treated and didn't bother to get more than impressionistic glimpses of a shimmery top, skirt and tie, and teal twin tails. She asked for my name, but I didn't let the show of courtesy trick me into any belief in intimacy or friendship. It didn't seem worthwhile to pay attention to her face.

I did my job, and I managed to get through a few of my note cards while the warm-up bands played. Maybe it should have bothered me that I'd lost interest so completely in the creative fire that used to fuel my own life, but I was too busy dreaming of a future working in offices where I wouldn't have to worry about eventual hearing loss.

One of the other techs nudged me, way too hard for the gesture to feel friendly.

"What the hell, Luka? You're not going to listen to her?"

The audience seemed unusually passionate. The mass produced cheers that sounded more like Thursday or even Friday than Wednesday to me. It first chords of Miku's show bubbled up from beneath the screaming, and then it hit me like a punch to the gut.

I'd written this song.

Miku repeated the riff, building it slowly towards a glory and an energy I had once known. She was working the crown to greater heights as she flirted with flinging her set wide open, her voice lifting above static and raucous shouts. I shoved the note cards messily into the space between a stray amp and the wall, ignoring the few that fluttered free.

I couldn't help but hum the notes that came next as I burst out of the spot where I'd been holed up and into the view of the stage. This time, I looked right at Miku. Standard rock-slash-pop star uniform, a well-cared-for but pretty unremarkable guitar, that sort of pretty that's easy to Photoshop into the appearance of flawlessness. All that was what I expected – they don't send girls on tour anymore unless they look like that, after all. But this time I saw how she relaxed when our eyes met, as if she'd been waiting for me to look at her. I saw the flare of her nostrils, the slender hands that somehow made it look easy to form the tricky chords on the neck of guitar and the way she'd already begun to sweat.

She looked young, but I'd been even younger during the wild nine months I travelled the country forming those very same chords, singing to crowds that screamed just like this one.

Miku signaled her band, and the song started in earnest while the crowd quieted. I was ready to cringe, to here amateurish mistakes in the songwriting that I wouldn't have noticed when I used to play this, but now the song seemed above and beyond my abilities, as if I'd discovered a trunk full of journals I'd written in a language I no longer was able to speak.

She was a great performer. In her voice, my song became hers. The air between us thickened with strange chemistry. The shape of notes was mine, but the tone of them hers. A song that slept for more than five years roared awake, stretched its jaws wide and tore the breath from my lungs.

Fuck, I'd been so angry when I was young. And so unafraid of being sexy. Or maybe that part was just her.

With each beat of the song and my pulse, I warmed with life, until the whole venue's heat pounded in my temples.

I remembered what I felt like to stare up at a woman and see her as a goddess. Before I learned to play, I watched women onstage – handling their guitars with effortless strength, kissing their microphones as they snarled and purred their songs, kicking cables out of the way as they strutted back and forth – and dreamed of serving them any way I could, even for a few moments. Did they want me to scream their names? To bow and scrape? To fall to my knees and dip my head between their legs?

Funny that when I was onstage, I still never felt like I was taking. I only knew how to give. I brought lovely groupies into motel beds and smiled at their jaded, clever talk when what I needed was sincerity. And when I let them eat me, it didn't matter how they looked up wide-eyed from then curls of my pubic hair, longing for approval. Whether they pleased me or not, they consumed me.

All that had ended for me five years ago.

Before Miku could finish performing my song, I shut her out with my earplugs. Backstage, one of my notecards was missing and another had been crushed by several shoes. My hands shook as I tried to smooth it out and put my deck if order.

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"You didn't like the way I played it?"

Even if the voice hadn't sent shivers of recognition and desire up my spine, only one person could have asked that question. I didn't look up. "You made it sound better than it ever did."

"Well, that's not true."

I sighed. False modesty never looked good on anyone. If the song hadn't sounded good when I played it, I'd never have been almost famous. I coiled the cable in my hands more rapidly, twitching it with impatient jerks of my hands. "Shouldn't you be at an after party? Or, if you're the responsible type, resting up in your motel?"

"I was going to invite you onstage. See if you wanted to join me for a quick session."

"Why would you do that?"

The stage creaked under her boots as she squatted. Now that she was eye-level with me, I had to drop my head further to the point of neck strain to both avoid her gaze… and the opening beneath her skirt. "You don't know anything about me, do you?"

I cleared my throat. "A lot of musicians come through here, you know."

"Yeah, a different band every night. I get it." She sounded both brave and angry, but there was a wobble underneath that finally tricked me into lifting my eyes to hers. Miku looked impossibly young and impossibly old at the same time, and the stage seemed to shift beneath me. I didn't want to see her as a goddess, but she was making me feel outside of time and uncertain of everything.

I whispered a little bit of truth. "I sort of lost interest a while ago."

"No." She shook her head and tumbled easily out of her squat and onto the bare stage, catching herself on her palms and crossing her legs in mid-movement. My eyes dropped without my permission. She made no effort at modesty. I saw a flash of blue and white stripped underwear. It was hard not to look, especially when I knew her face would affect me even more.

Seeking refuge, I crawled halfway behind an amp and started coiling another cable. Clockwise, counter. Clockwise, counter. Over, under. Over, under. "You're saying I didn't actually lose interest?"

"People who lose interest are indifferent. That's not you. You're scared."

It felt satisfying to rip a piece of gaff tape off the stage. She wasn't exactly telling me things I didn't know. But she was trying to make me talk about things I didn't like to talk about. For just a second, I fantasized about my future job in IT so hard it just about brought tears to my eyes. No more late nights in this beer-soured building. No more unpredictable encounters and loud noises. No more late nights and early mornings. No more bitterness, and no more constant reminders of why I was bitter. No more jealousy.

No more gorgeous twenty-something rock stars who had for some reason taken time to learn to play a song that only barely remained within the grasp of my own muscle memory.

"Why did you learn it? When did you learn it? Hell, how did you know it even exists?"

She coughed, the sound strange coming from the throat of someone so perfect looking. "That's one of my things. Whenever I tour with my band, I call ahead to every venue, ask if they have any musicians in the house. I pick stuff to learn… kind of as a tribute. You'd be surprised – well, maybe you wouldn't be – _I_ was surprised by how many former and current musicians are working as techs and ticket-takers and bartenders and whatever."

I wasn't sure if the explanation made me feel more or less special about having her chosen my song. "How positively big of you," I said. The sarcasm in my voice made me feel like an ass and I winced.

"I'm not trying to be high and mighty. I'm just… aware."

"That in five years you could be in my position."

"I didn't mean to insult you." She sounded indignant.

"No, I get it."

"I don't think you do," she said, rising and walking into my line of vision. I found myself staring at a patch of pale, pink knee and lower thigh. I looked away.

The idea of her walking away now made me feel cold, as if her presence had been warming me even while I resisted it.

"Wait a sec," I said. "How do people usually react to this thing you do?"

"Some of them are pretty happy and excited. Flattered, even."

"And the others?"

"Some people are pretty embarrassed by their songs. They tell me later that they don't agree with the lyrics they wrote anymore."

"And some people are assholes about it." I said. It wasn't a question.

"Well, yeah. Some people criticize everything about my performance of their songs."

"I'm not criticizing you."

"And I didn't call you an asshole."

"I'm something, though, aren't I?"

"I already told you. You're scared."

I wanted to prove that I was brave. I wanted to stand up, grab a guitar and show her. Or maybe just skip ahead and grab her by both upper arms and kiss her until she knew how fierce I could really be.

I did something even braver. I apologized. "I should have listened to your whole cover. Your whole set. I'm sorry."

The coldness went away in a rush. Miku approached me, closer this time, sitting beside me. I relinquished what had become a death grip on my latest cable. Her thigh brushed the side of my knee. She smelled of sweat, but it was just salty, not sour. "Do you still play?"

"No."

"Why?"

The thing I liked talking about least of all. "I had a contract for a second album. I tried to work on it while I was touring. That song – the one you played – it was all I could manage."

"It's a good song. That's why I chose it."

"It was the end of my career, though."

"What do you mean the end?"

"I ran out of steam after. I ran out of things to say."

"I don't believe that's possible."

"I wish it hadn't been."

We were quiet for a long time. Her hand crept to mind. My stomach wouldn't stop churning. I'd never been more uncomfortable in my life, and I couldn't imagine this moment felt any better from her perspective.

"I see why you're scared," she said softly.

I shook my head. "I don't think you do. Not unless you know what it's like to feel completely and totally emptied out."

"But you weren't. You couldn't have been."

She wasn't a goddess. She was a kid. She was giving me the same wide-eyed look – the one I'd seen on groupies, the one I hadn't been able to recognize at first when I slept with aging rock stares. I couldn't understand why the hell she'd want approval from me, but then I remembered. At a certain point, it didn't matter where that came from as long as it came from somewhere.

I never did know how to take.

I brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. It was so heavily styled that hairspray cracked against my hand in resistance. She relaxed into the movement, resting the side of her head in my cupped palm. It was like I'd never even tried to be anyone else. I knew just what she needed from me and how to give it to her.

Her words had been so challenging, so confident, but Miku's body melted into mine when I pulled her close. I could feel her trembling. I stroked the sweaty back of her head and glanced around the venue. Most people had gone home already, but there was always a chance someone in her entourage might come looking for her. As a musician, she needed discretion, even if she hadn't learned that yet.

I let her go and told her where and when to meet me. She slipped off to wherever she'd come from. My chest had tightened, making it hard to draw a full breath. I didn't know if I was excited or terrified, but I finished my work in record time.

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She'd tried to make herself look ordinary before coming over to my apartment, but the effect was anything but. Fame and talent have an aura, and now she was trying to conceal that, it poured out of her eyes and flowed from her hair. Her ragged, baggy t-shirt emphasized her thin arms, and her big sunglasses drew attention to the expressive lips she used in her performances. Now I didn't know how I'd managed to see her as part of a faceless line of acts parading through the venue. She clutched a guitar case against her side, as if this was a first band practice and she was nervous about it.

I let her in. The guitar case banged against the wall, and I took it from her and set it gently on the floor. I watched her look around the apartment, her eyes widened as she took in my schoolbooks and walls bare of posters. She'd said she didn't mean to insult me, but I knew she was thinking about how desperately she didn't want to end up like me. She wanted music to be a part of her life forever. She wasn't the type to understand how I could let it go.

As for me, seeing her in my living room – the glamour that clung to her made the place feel more alive than it had in years. I tried to think of hoarse throats and unwashed bodies, the creaky, sandy feeling of nights spent without enough sleep, but in truth I missed the colorful darkness of people like her. I hadn't wanted to care whether she'd show up, but I'd been pacing for hours, watching videos of her songs on my phone. If she left because of what I'd become…

I couldn't bear it, I realized. I would show her what I still remembered.

The first time I kissed a rock star, I thought she would taste pampered and expensive. But musicians don't get lives of luxury. Miku's lips were rough; chapped. Her tongue carried hints of the flavors of roadside diners. Her muscles felt ropy when I gripped her upper arms.

She kissed me back with familiar desperation.

When I let up, Miku was looking at me like I had some sort of answer.

"Maybe you'll regret this in the morning," I said.

"I won't."

"How do you know?"

She bit her lip and didn't say anything.

"Different venue every night," I said. "I get it." My meaning hit home and I could sense it stung.

"You…"

I kissed her again before she could fumble for a compliment she didn't really mean. I carried Miku to my bed.

Our clothes came off so easily – so much easier than all the other means I used to hide my nakedness. She had no tan lines anywhere.

I reached into my nightstand for my lube and a box of gloves and dental dams. Miku blushed heavily.

"You don't have to use those."

"I do. I leaned some things when I was on the road."

I spent a few minutes exploring her. It had been so long since I'd fucked like it didn't matter that I couldn't help touching her like I loved her. As I ran my palm lightly over her side and her hip, then over the slight curve of her breast, just barely brushing the nipple, I glanced up at her face and noticed her chin trembling.

"It's okay," I whispered, and then kissed a path from her mouth to the corner of her eye, where I tasted a tear. "Tell me what you want."

She shrugged against my pillow.

"I can wait."

I teased her with a fingertip, travelling from her hip bone to the very top of her mound and going no lower. She had thick pubic hair, which surprised me. I'd thought everybody shaved these days. Maybe fashion had moved on while I wasn't paying attention.

Her hips rocked toward me, but I didn't take the subtle hint. Finally, she gave a little groan. "You're not going to fuck me?"

"Is that what you want?"

She lifted her head, wide-eyed. "You think I don't know what I want?" She grabbed a glove out of the box and pressed it into my palm. "I want to feel good."

I smiled a little. "Don't we all."

She rolled her eyes, and my cockiness slipped a notch. I snapped on the glove. "What do you like?"

"Just touch me."

Her lips were so pretty, the palest pink under those teal curls. I wanted to make her swell and blush with arousal. I stroked her hooded clit, just to say hello, and stretched out beside her so I could kiss her while I did. In no time, her hips were rocking again. I could feel her trying to direct my fingers to particular spots, but I resisted every time. I worked my other hand between our bodies so I could play with her nipples.

The position hurt my upper arm, but the discomfort was worth it because soon Miku was whimpering and sobbing into my mouth.

I grinned into our kiss. "You need something specific after all?"

"I need you to fuck me," she whispered through clenched teeth.

I pulled back, feigning surprise. "Well, why didn't you say so?"

She shook her head and breathed out a laugh. "Maybe I'll call you an asshole after all."

"Sorry."

"Just do it, please." Her grin softened the exchange.

She'd gotten so wet. With that plus the lube, my first finger slid into her with no trouble at all. I added another almost immediately, and I had to close my eyes a moment to savor her sweet gasp. Settling my thumb on her clit, I began to thrust into her, watching the way her eyelashes fluttered and her body rocked as I moved.

My third finger made her head tilt back until I couldn't see her face. Her neck, though, was so long and perfect that I pressed a kiss to the side of it, and then nibbled down to her shoulder. Above me, she gasped and cursed and begged and prayed. I rocked back on my heels and witnessed it all. I wasn't sure if she was with me or her mind had taken her somewhere else, but I was here with her.

She was squeezing my hands so hard it hurt, and her clit hardened under my thumb.

My arm began to ache from the effort, but the moment I slowed, her head snapped up. "For fuck's sake, don't stop!"

I smirked and put more muscle into it.

Miku's legs spread wider and wider. She gripped my pillow with both hands and grunted with effort of working herself up to orgasm. I didn't like she was fighting so hard for it. I pulled my hand out of her with one smooth motion.

She flinched as if I'd slapped her. "What the—?" Her eyes were unfocused, searching the room as if she'd lost me along with her impending orgasm. I waited She scrabbled up to her elbows. "W-what's the matter?" she asked, her chest heaving.

"Nothing."

"Then why did you…? That was mean!"

Slowly, gently, I returned my hand to her pussy, petting it. She whimpered and started grinding against me.

"I'm not trying to me mean. I'm just trying to let you know you've got plenty of time. I'm here all night. You don't have to strain yourself."

"I need—"

"Shh. I know you need something. But lie still. I want to try to give it to you. You don't need to take it."

Her lips sucked my first finger in. She quivered as I stretched her, and the moment I started thrusting again, she tensed up and started struggling.

Miku moaned from deep in her chest when I removed my hand. "You asshole!" She snarled.

"Relax," I reminded her gently.

She was starting to figure out the game. She clutched her upper thighs with both hands but didn't move her hips.

"There you go," I crooned. "That's what I want you to do."

Her thighs shook. I thrust into her harder and faster that I had before. My knuckles banged against her entrance with each stroke.

"Please… Luka… I want you to—I want to…"

"Patience."

Her toes pointed and her knees locked. Her back arched as if her breasts were being pulled towards the ceiling. Miku tore her hands free from her legs, clutching at the air and then covering her face. The air between us had changed. She wasn't trying to orgasm anymore; the orgasm was starting to happen to her.

"You're almost there. Just let it come. I've got you."

She sobbed and came with all of her muscles. I bit my lip as I felt my center clench in sympathy with hers. I curled my fingers to draw out her orgasm.

I got so caught up in watching her that it took me by surprise when she lunged at me, kissing my face clumsily, clawing at my sides and grabbing for the box of globes.

"You don't have to—"

"Shut the fuck up." She hissed against my mouth.

She'd obviously done this before, but she didn't have the finesse. Once inside me, her fingers searched blindingly. Part of me wanted to resist her, to prove I knew her body better than she knew mine.

She was so eager, though, to please me that I just surrendered to her. Amid her mess of kisses, there were lucky stokes here and there. Her hip brushed my clit as she fumbled, and I was coming, hard and unexpectedly, both of us laughing with dazed disbelief. I drew her down for a slower kiss and realized there were tears in my eyes, too.

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I never learned to take, but sometimes I've been given moments of strange, accidental grace.

The morning after I was with Miku, I woke up alone except for the smell of her hairspray and her sweat. Stumbling into the kitchen, mumbling to myself about coffee, I stubbed my toe against the guitar case she'd brought over the night before. I hopped and cursed, but then sat down on the floor and opened it.

It turns out I wasn't completely and totally emptied out, after all. My fingers followed the trails left by her fingers.

I've written a handful of songs since the night Miku spent with me – though I also passed my network certification exam. I like to think it means I never actually lost the music, and that she won't either. I like to think she left the guitar with me on purpose, to make up for the bit of my heart she took with her.

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 **The End**

A/N: Thank you for reading.

 _***Will work for glomps***_


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